309 Gti Wishbone Drama!

[Rolando 10]

as some of you know my pug failed mot on 2 balljoints. so i went to my local motor factors and spent £150 on 2 delphi wishbones. i went to take it back for retest and driving it about 200yards down the road i knew something wasn't right as it was pulling all over the place so i took it home. i instantly thought it was going to be wrong parts and that they had given me 205 wishbones so i whipped them off to measure them and put them up next to some 205 ones i had and low and behold they were longer and did measure 36cm as I've researched.

 

i spoke to a few people and they said after changing 2 wishbones its more than likely that the tracking was out and it would definitely need doing. so thinking that i put it all back together and went to take it back this evening ready for the morning. driving down the road and as before it was pulling all over the place but as i built up speed the whole car was severely vibrating and shaking as if the wheels were buckled and i didn't go over 25mph and the shaking got worse under strain up a hill.

 

obviously ive worked out that its the wishbones fault but what excuse can i go back with to the motor factors?? there the correct size?

 

the only thing i did notice when fitting was when i fitted them you had to push the hub in and side to side for the ball joint to fit rather than the old ones was just side to side causing tension on the driveshaft when the new ones were fitted i thought. if that all makes sense?

 

any help would be much appreciated. thanks Ro

[Rolando 10]

all sorted. i fitted the original drivers side, took it down the road and it was normal apart from the tracking was out because of the other side.

 

i explained everything to my mate that works for a ford dealer and he suggested measuring from the edge of the bush to the centre of the balljoint and low and behold it was 5mm out from the original! i couldn't believe it! took it back and explained it to them and they said yeh thats fine, it happens a lot will order you another one in!!!

[Anthony 1,002]

A 99% reliable way of determining whether it's a 205 or 309 wishbone at a glance is to look to see if there's any webbing - 205 wishbones are webbed, whereas 309 wishbones are plain.

 

I have seen some distinctly dubious tolerances in wishbones though, with a supposed like-for-like swap throwing the tracking miles out.

[pugdamo 111 2 Cars]

A 99% reliable way of determining whether it's a 205 or 309 wishbone at a glance is to look to see if there's any webbing - 205 wishbones are webbed, whereas 309 wishbones are plain.

 

I have seen some distinctly dubious tolerances in wishbones though, with a supposed like-for-like swap throwing the tracking miles out.

 

Agree 100% After swapping mine with a pattern arm i could physically see the tracking was out,driving it was awful and when i had the tracking done it was off the scale.

 

Hope you get somewhere with the arm i gave you,let me know how it goes